Is there a difference between the (plural) you and the (royal) you?

[Horace Algiers]

Sometimes I want to say "you" in the plural sense, so I often put (plural)
after the "you"; but then I wonder what's the difference between a plural
you and a royal you?

As in ... "I was asking you (plural) if there is a known answer?"
Versus ... "I was asking you (royal) if there is a known answer?"

Which is preferred?

[Yusuf B Gursey]

On Saturday, September 24, 2016 at 5:41:58 AM UTC+3, Horace Algiers wrote:
> Sometimes I want to say "you" in the plural sense, so I often put (plural)
> after the "you"; but then I wonder what's the difference between a plural
> you and a royal you?
>
> As in ... "I was asking you (plural) if there is a known answer?"

In the South and among Blacks you can use y'all

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 10:52:19 PM UTC-4, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> On Saturday, September 24, 2016 at 5:41:58 AM UTC+3, Horace Algiers wrote:

> > Sometimes I want to say "you" in the plural sense, so I often put (plural)
> > after the "you"; but then I wonder what's the difference between a plural
> > you and a royal you?
> > As in ... "I was asking you (plural) if there is a known answer?"
>
> In the South and among Blacks you can use y'all

In Brooklyn you can say "youse." Throughout the US you can say "you-guys."
Since we have no royalty, there would be no call to use a "royal you."

> > Versus ... "I was asking you (royal) if there is a known answer?"
> > Which is preferred?

If you visit the Palace, the protocol will be explained to you. It's
highly unlikely that you will be in a position to question the Queen.

[spuorg...@gowanhill.com]

There isn't a royal you.

Titled persons above a certain rank are addressed by their title.

""Will your Majesty take tea in the library?"

If you are sufficiently senior or intimate with any of the Royals to address them as "you", "luggerbugs" or "Walesy" then you will know this. If you aren't, but you do, then Her Majesty will twitch her handbag and an aide will move you aside, or HRH Princess Anne will tell you to naff orf.

Owain

[Mark Brader]

Horace Algiers:

I don't believe there is such a thing as a "royal you".

"You (plural)" is rather awkward. I would suggest using "all of you"
(or "both of you", as applicable).
--
Mark Brader I'm not pompous; I'm pedantic.
Toronto Let me explain it to you.
m...@vex.net --Mary Kay Kare

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[RH Draney]

On 9/24/2016 1:14 AM, Mark Brader wrote:
> Horace Algiers:
>> Sometimes I want to say "you" in the plural sense, so I often put (plural)
>> after the "you"; but then I wonder what's the difference between a plural
>> you and a royal you?
>>
>> As in ... "I was asking you (plural) if there is a known answer?"
>> Versus ... "I was asking you (royal) if there is a known answer?"
>
> I don't believe there is such a thing as a "royal you".
>
> "You (plural)" is rather awkward. I would suggest using "all of you"
> (or "both of you", as applicable).

Just don't replace "you all" with "you people" in an attempt to sound
less "hick"...Ross Perot got into all sorts of trouble for that....r

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

As others have said, there is no such thing as a "royal you".

"You" can be singular or plural.

There used to be the second person "thee" for singular use.
It is now mainly archaic and has been replaced by "you".

"I was asking thee if there is a known answer?", speaking to one
person.

"I was asking you if there is a known answer?", speaking to more than
one person.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Don Phillipson]

"Horace Algiers" <hor...@horacealgiers.com> wrote in message
news:ns4p5e$1b18$3...@gioia.aioe.org...

The OP seems to have misunderstood. Like the "editorial we"
the "royal we" is the convention of a single person's speaking
or writing using the plural number, e.g. "We think XY will win."

The editorial we appears to be wholly independent of the
American military convention of giving orders or answers
in the third person, e.g.
"The major orders the lieutenant to move north"
meaning
"I order you to move north."

But all are conventions of speech or writing i.e. determined
by membership of a linguistic community. There is no "royal
you" (or editorial or other) because no linguistic community
shares such a convention. Any impulse to "want to say
"you" in the plural sense" is strictly personal.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[GordonD]

If you're talking to the Queen at a garden party or other function and
she says to you, "How interesting!" be prepared to be moved on. That's
her secret code for "This person is boring me!"

--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <ns4p5e$1b18$3...@gioia.aioe.org>,

There is no "royal you" in English.

There is the archaic "thou," which is the singular second personal
pronoun. The plural was "you." In modern English, "you" has replaced the
singular "thou," and now serves for both the singular and plural.

Thee, thy, thine have also been displaced.

[Horace Algiers]

On Sat, 24 Sep 2016 08:29:21 -0400, Don Phillipson wrote:

> The OP seems to have misunderstood. Like the "editorial we"
> the "royal we" is the convention of a single person's speaking
> or writing using the plural number, e.g. "We think XY will win."

Yes. That was what I was considering when I asked the question.

[Horace Algiers]

On Sat, 24 Sep 2016 03:14:10 -0500, Mark Brader wrote:

> I don't believe there is such a thing as a "royal you".

Isn't it akin to the royal "we"?

[Richard Tobin]

In article <ns6bmc$1jjr$3...@gioia.aioe.org>,

Horace Algiers <hor...@horacealgiers.com> wrote:

>> I don't believe there is such a thing as a "royal you".

>Isn't it akin to the royal "we"?

The "royal we" is a first person plural used instead of the first
person singular. Since neither verbs nor pronouns differ according to
number in the second person, it's not possible to make the analogous
change.

-- Richard

[Katy Jennison]

On 24/09/2016 15:32, Horace LaBadie wrote:
> There is no "royal you" in English.
>
> There is the archaic "thou," which is the singular second personal
> pronoun. The plural was "you." In modern English, "you" has replaced the
> singular "thou," and now serves for both the singular and plural.
>
> Thee, thy, thine have also been displaced.

Except when addressing an apparently plural Deity. Strange thing, religion.

--
Katy Jennison

[Janet]

In article <ns6bmc$1jjr$3...@gioia.aioe.org>, hor...@horacealgiers.com
says...

>
> On Sat, 24 Sep 2016 03:14:10 -0500, Mark Brader wrote:
>
> > I don't believe there is such a thing as a "royal you".
>
> Isn't it akin to the royal "we"?

No. Royal you doesn't exist.

Janet.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <ns6dl9$1n4$3...@news.albasani.net>,

Katy Jennison <ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:

>> There is no "royal you" in English.
>>
>> There is the archaic "thou," which is the singular second personal
>> pronoun. The plural was "you." In modern English, "you" has replaced the
>> singular "thou," and now serves for both the singular and plural.
>>
>> Thee, thy, thine have also been displaced.

>Except when addressing an apparently plural Deity. Strange thing, religion.

Ancient Greek had a "dual" grammatical number for certain things that
naturally come in twos; perhaps Christians have a triple that happens
to be identical to the archaic singular.

-- Richard

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <ns6dl9$1n4$3...@news.albasani.net>,
Katy Jennison <ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:

Addressing the Father who art in Heaven.

There is the chance that thou/thee is still alive among the
Amish-Pennsylvania Dutch-Quaker, although I think that the last time I
heard it was in the movies. Even then it was in historical context of
the 19th Century.

[Peter Moylan]

"I was using the royal 'we'."
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I didn't realise you were on the throne."

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Peter Moylan]

You're only supposed to pray to God The Father. You don't address
prayers to the other two, except indirectly in phrases like "We ask You
this in His name".

And praying to saints is a heresy that seems to have become popular in
recent centuries. You'd think that people would have realised that
praying to a saint for, for example, a cure for a serious illness will
produce a miracle in only three out of thousands of attempts. (And I
think that the Vatican has now cut this back to two, because of the
difficulty in recruiting new saints.)

[Peter T. Daniels]

Hunh? J2P2, or Pope George Ringo, made more new saints than I-don't-know-how-
many-decades-of-popes before him.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

That happens to follow the abolition of the function of the Devil's
Advocate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate

During the canonization process employed by the Roman Catholic
Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: promotor fidei), popularly
known as the Devil's advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), was a
canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the
canonization of a candidate. It was this person’s job to take a
skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in
the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate
were fraudulent, and so on. The Devil's advocate opposed God's
advocate (Latin: advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the
Cause), whose task was to make the argument in favor of
canonization. During the investigation of a cause, this task is now
performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in
charge of examining the accuracy of the inquiry on the saintliness
of the candidate. The Promoter of the Faith remains a figure in the
Congregation of the Causes of Saints and is also known as the
Prelate Theologian.

The office was established in 1587...
Pope John Paul II reduced the power and changed the role of the
office in 1983. This reform changed the canonization process
considerably, helping John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented
number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over
1,300 were beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only
98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors.

[Janet]

In article <hlabadie-C40DEB...@aioe.org>,
hlab...@nospam.com says...

Thee/thou/thy (pronounced tha)is still heard in the northern counties
of England.

Janet.